Generation of Vipers - The Gangly Copper
by Clembob
Summary: James Hathaway and Briony Keagen grew close during the investigation, but Hathaway tried to stop it. Now, with Briony at risk because she was willing to help him, will Hathaway continue to hide his growing feelings for her or lay it all out in the open to protect her? A story based on S06E02 where Briony wasn't killed.
1. Chapter 1 - The Barker Biz

She was sat at her desk, trying to complete the task that her employer Kit Renton had set her when the buzzer for the front door sounded.

"Briony, go get that will you?" Kit shouted from his office door at the other end of the room. With a sigh, she got out of her seat, walked over to the wall and pressed the button on the intercom.

"Hello?" She said. _Why do I have also have to answer the door? _She thought to herself angrily; she had other work to do!

"Police" A deep voice answered her. Her heart instantly jumped at the gruffness of it. _I hope the face matches the voice_, she thought to herself devilishly.

She pressed another button and the door downstairs opened. She made her way over to the banister and leant over.

"Hello Police" she called, waiting for them to see her. "Do you have ID?" She asked, smirking when she saw that the face did indeed match the voice.

She bent one of her legs so that her hip stuck out, moving her chest back and forth slightly.

"He's Lewis, and I'm Hathaway" Mr. Deep Voice answered. _Hathaway. _She set the name to memory and silently vowed to find out his first name as well.

"And I'm Briony. Come up." She said, smiling brightly at Hathaway, no eyes for the older man.

She waited for them at the top of the stairs and when they reached her, she led them through to the offices, exaggerating the sway of her hips.

"So this is the Barker dot Biz" Said the other man, Lewis. She stuck her hands in her pockets and pushed her chest out slightly, glancing over her shoulder at Hathaway who was looking around the desks curiously.

"Global HQ. Offices in Cambridge, London, Manchester." She said, annoyed that Lewis was asking the questions instead of Hathaway.

"Not Newcastle?" Lewis enquired.

"No not yet. Why is that where you're from?" She asked politely, trying to stop herself looking back at Hathaway.

"Only sins" Lewis joked slightly.

"Your sins are forgiven." She said, walking over to her desk.

"Do you work here?" He finally spoke, looking at her expectantly.

"Well really I'm studying PP at St Jude's," She said, clasping her hands in front of her, and squeezing her breasts together with her arms, "but a girl's gotta pay the bills" She exclaimed with another bright smile.

She looked at Lewis, but from the corner of her eye she noticed Hathaway's eyes travel down her body and then up again. She turned her smile onto him, smirking ever so slightly. They locked eyes for a few seconds. "So…?" Briony asked, snapping Hathaway out of his frozen state.

"So," he said, looking down at his feet to hide his slight blush at being caught staring at her, before looking back into her eyes, "Professor Thornton's private video tape of the Barker website." He stated, noticing her squirm uncomfortably under their scrutinizing gaze.

"Care to tell us how that happened?" Lewis pushed, also noticing Briony's discomfort. She stumbled over how to answer before Kit thankfully saved her.

"Don't worry Briony, I've got this one." Kit said, not looking up from his game of table football. She let out a large breath she didn't realize she was holding before smiling at the two Detectives.

Then she took her cue as Lewis's inquiries were redirected onto Kit to go back to her desk. She could feel Hathaway's eyes on her as she walked away so she swayed her hips a little more than usual.

"Bacon, that's funny. Original." She heard Hathaway telling Kit sarcastically.

She glanced over her shoulder to watch the unfolding events, her eyes landing on Hathaway's back before heading downwards, appraising him from head to foot, and stopping somewhere halfway.

_Nice_, she thought, smirking one last time before turning back to her work. She let herself have one last glance at Hathaway's backside as he sauntered out of the offices, having just questioned Kit for 5 minutes.


	2. Chapter 2 - She Was Nice Pretty

They had been in the office trying to make sense of the Thornton case for hours after they left the Barker offices. Eventually, they called it a day and Hathaway headed back to his flat.

Once he'd got into his penthouse, he put together the makings of an omelet and sat down in front of the TV, thinking about his day. Even though there had been a murder, the only thing he could think about was the girl at Barker; Briony.

The way she dropped her hip and smiled at him made his heart beat slightly faster, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone, especially Lewis. Her long, brown hair made him ache to reach his hand out to touch its softness, and her curves were a tantalizing tease for his eyes.

But he had to get his head out of the gutter. She was part of the case. He couldn't be thinking about her that way. He finished his omelet and headed into his room.

As he got ready to crash out on his bed, he couldn't shift the thoughts of Briony, and so to his dismay he fell asleep thinking about how her lips would feel under his and how her legs would feel wrapped around his waist.

The next day, he and Lewis were meandering through the streets of Oxford, discussing the case and where they were going to go and look for clues. "Decided what you're going to do?" He asked Lewis.

"Yeah, take a leaf out of Renton's book; use embarrassment as a weapon." He stated, malice lacing his words. "He might love publicity but I doubt that a website like 'Heart & Soul' will. I want to talk to them and see who broke into their system and stole Miranda's video."

"Okay, you do that. I'll have another go at that girl, Briony." Just saying her name made something stir inside of him. He looked everywhere but at Lewis, trying to hide the change in himself.

"Briony? She was nice; pretty." Lewis stated, seeing straight through Hathaway's shields. He looked over at Hathaway to gauge his reaction. Hathaway simply took a deep breath and turned to face him, putting up a mask to cover his emotions.

"Is she?" He asked, trying to show he thought differently, but failing miserably. Lewis gave up attempting to get through to Hathaway and so just faced ahead of him saying,

"See you back at the office." And they both went their separate ways.


	3. Chapter 3 - What A Coincidence?

She stepped out into the sunshine with her caramel hot chocolate in her hand. She had finished college for the day and was going to the studio to start recording Act 2 of Shakespeare's Troilus & Cressida with Sebastian and his friends.

She was stopped in her tracks when she saw DS Hathaway leaning in a door frame outside the coffee shop.

"Briony, what a coincidence?" He asked, a hint of sarcasm and boredom lacing his words. But the boredom had a hint of fakeness to it. He pushed away from the wall using his shoulders. Briony wiped the hot chocolate from her lips, looking up at his insistent gaze.

"Is it a coincidence?" She said, speculating because of the sarcasm in his tone. He looked away from her and paused until finally admitting the truth.

"No, not really," he said, looking up at her again, "I waited for you to leave your college, then followed." He stated plainly, not missing the way her eyes lit up when she heard that he followed her.

"Oh, so you're stalking me?" She said, attempting to hide the fact that she was secretly pleased by his admittance.

"Well, I'm a policeman, its surveillance, not stalking" He said. He could tell that she wanted him to say that it wasn't for work, but he couldn't admit that, even if he wanted it to be true. He was starting to think that maybe Lewis was right. Was he using the case as an excuse to talk to her?

"Well that doesn't sound very fair." She said teasingly, looking up at him through her full eyelashes. A wave of lust hit him when he noticed again how beautiful she was, and so he looked away for a second before saying,

"Fair if you're a policeman." Good, he'd justified his reason for being there, making sure she knew that it was strictly for the case, and nothing more. The problem was he could see she didn't believe him from the smirk on her beautifully soft lips, and he wasn't sure whether he believed it himself.

Deciding that he was going to work harder to make her believe him, he began to ask questions about the case. "Can I talk to you about Miranda Thornton?" He asked. She sighed, realizing that their flirtatious moment had passed. She began to walk away slowly so that he would walk with her.

"Right." She said disappointedly.

"I want to know why her tape got off 'Heart & Soul' and thought you might be able to point me in the right direction." He stated, looking at her to see her initial reaction. She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by her name being called.

"Oh, hi Sebastian." She said, not sounding particularly happy about the interruption. A blonde boy walked up to them, staring daggers at Hathaway.

"Who are you?" He asked, not impressed that someone was talking to his girlfriend.

"Detective Sergeant Hathaway. And you?" He replied, annoyed that someone was interrupting his conversation with Briony.

"None of your business." The boy replied, "Why you bothering her?" He had some nerve. In Hathaway's eyes, Sebastian was the one bothering her. He could see out of the corner of his eye that she was uncomfortable with Sebastian talking for her, and was sending Hathaway sorry looks through her eyelashes.

"Why are you so aggressive?" Hathaway countered. Two can play at that game.

"I don't know, maybe because I saw a weird-looking dude chatting up my girlfriend." He looked pointedly at Briony, who dropped her head under his scrutinizing gaze.

"Sebastian," she said, glancing at Hathaway, "It's alright." She smiled at him, trying to reassure him. Hathaway could see that the smile didn't reach her eyes.

"No, it's not alright. We're late for the studio" he argued, turning his head away from Hathaway, trying to get Briony on his side so that she would stop talking to the policeman.

"Okay, well you go and I'll catch you up" Hathaway was pleased that she still wanted to talk to him. When Sebastian hesitated, Briony looked at Hathaway, apologies in her eyes, before turning back to Sebastian with a fake smile. "I mean it." She said pleadingly, trying to convince him to leave her and Hathaway alone.

Sebastian raged an inner war for a few moments before giving up and walking away. Briony looked after him, guilt written all over her face.

She turned back to Hathaway and quickly apologized. "Sorry about that, he's just under a lot of pressure." She said, not being able to meet his eyes because of the embarrassment she felt. Why was she defending him? He had been a overprotective ass hole and treated her like a possession in front of Hathaway.

"Don't worry about it" Hathaway said, looking at Sebastian's retreating form, glad he had gone and Briony had chosen to stay and talk to him. Turning back to her, he asked "Studio? You a singer?" She smiled, wishing she was.

"No, we're recording Shakespeare's plays. All of them." She said, giving Hathaway a pointed look that told him she wasn't happy about it. He lifted an eyebrow at her, questioningly. "Sebastian's idea."

"Wow that is a lot of pressure. Which one are you on?" He was actually curious. Nobody had ever had a real conversation with her. People normally just saw how pretty she was, saw how big her tits were and then pretended to be interested in her in the hopes she'd let them in her pants. But not Hathaway, he was actually looking her in the eye as he asked her actually questions about her life and interests.

"Troilus and Cressida." She started walking again, him falling into step beside her. "I'm Cressida. Faithless Cressida." She said, giving him another pointed look out of the corner of her eye.

He couldn't tell whether she was implying that people often thought she was faithless, or whether she was hinting to him that she wanted to be faithless, with him.

_No, that's stupid, why would she like you? _Hathaway thought to himself. He didn't say anything, and to his dismay, Briony took that as a rejection. _So maybe she does want to be faithless to Sebastian with you? _

Thankfully, she started talking again, breaking the awkward silence. "Look, this is all I'm gonna say. Barker is a bit like Wikipedia.

"What? Like the users can edit it?" He enquired. He might actually find something out for the case, which would show Lewis that he was actually working and not just using it as a chance to flirt with Briony.

"Yeah, and get into the operating system. If you pull the video, you might find there's a source code embedded in it." She turned to Hathaway to see if he had understood. He stopped and turned to her as well.

"I'd better get going" She said, turning to walk to the studio. He nodded his understanding, a little disappointed that they hadn't had longer to talk.

As she was walking away, she looked over her shoulder and found that Hathaway was still stood in the middle of the street, watching her as she walked away. She added extra sway to her hips as she walked, knowing that he wasn't looking at her head or back.


End file.
